Tag Archive | "Jesus Christ Superstar"

With millions of Filipinos living below poverty line and children dying of malnutrition and disease, it’s shocking to read news stories like this:

Lay Catholic group raises P2.7 million to buy vehicles for bishops

MANILA, Philippines – A lay Catholic group led by former Manila mayor Lito Atienza and election lawyer Romulo Macalintal yesterday said they have already raised P2.7 million and have donated utility vehiclesto at least three Catholic bishops.

CBCPNews, the official news service provider of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), said Macalintal revealed that the money was used to purchase four Foton pickup trucks.

Television host Willie Revillame has also donated P100,000 with a van and another pickup truck.

The Diocese of Butuan under Bishop Juan de Dios Pueblos, who was highly criticized for asking former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo for a car for his birthday, received the van from Revillame.

This reminds me of the song “Everything’s Alright” from the musical Jesus Christ Superstar. The scene is based on John 12:3-8 where Mary Magdalene used her expensive perfume on Jesus’ feet. Judas was indignant:

Woman your fine ointment, brand new and expensive Should have been saved for the poor. Why has it been wasted? We could have raised maybe Three hundred silver pieces or more. People who are hungry, people who are starving Matter more than your feet and hair!

But then Jesus tried to justify Mary’s extravagance:

Surely you’re not saying we have the resources To save the poor from their lot? There will be poor always, pathetically struggling Look at the good things you’ve got Think while you still have me! Move while you still see me! You’ll be lost, and you’ll be so sorry when I’m gone.

There will always be poor people indeed and charity can only do so much to help them, but do the bishops deserve to be treated and pampered like Jesus? Should we be grateful that we still have them? Will we be lost and sorry when they’re gone?

Macalintal and Atienza seem to think so because when the bishops were stripped of their rides they scrambled to raise money for the replacement of such vehicles. They’re almost like Mary Magdalene singing to Jesus:

Try not to get worried, try not to turn on to Problems that upset you, oh. Don’t you know Everything’s alright, yes, everything’s fine.

Yes, everything’s alright. We’ll give you another fleet of brand-new cars so don’t be upset about returning those vehicles to the PCSO.

But I think one bishop will be upset, and that is Bishop Juan de Dios Pueblos of Butuan. His Mistubushi Montero was replaced with a van, when he specifically asked for “a brand-new car, possibly a 4×4” from GMA for his birthday.

In Andrew Lloyd Webber’s rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar, Judas sings Heaven On Their Minds, expressing his concern about how Jesus’ influence was getting dangerously out of hand. With a hindsight of 2000 years, let us look at how Judas’ forewarning fared over the centuries.

My mind is clearer nowAt last
All too wellI can seeWhere we allSoon will beIf you strip awayThe mythFrom the manYou will seeWhere we allSoon will be.Over the next 2000 years we’ve seen just where Jesus’ disciples have been – all over the globe conquering entire nations. Most of their followers haven’t stripped the myth from the man, and the new leaders wanted to keep it that way..Jesus!You’ve started to believeThe things they say of youYou really do believeThis talk of God is trueAnd all the good you’ve doneWill soon be swept awayYou’ve begun to matter moreThan the things you say.If Jesus really did exist, it would not be impossible for his fans’ delusion to also get into his head. After all, he was only human. Other humans even took after him, but while most of us readily dismiss these modern-day messiahs as frauds, we do not apply the same skepticism to someone who claimed as such 2000 years ago..

Listen JesusI don’t like what I seeAll I ask is that you listen to meAnd rememberI’ve been your right hand man all alongYou have set them all on fireThey think they’ve found the new MessiahAnd they’ll hurt you when they find they’re wrong.

Unfortunately, most of them never found out they were wrong. And the ones they hurt were those who would not acknowledge their beliefs.

I remember when this whole thing beganNo talk of God then, we called you a manAnd believe meMy admiration for you hasn’t diedBut every word you say todayGets twisted ’round some other wayAnd they’ll hurt you if they think you’ve lied.

It got twisted so badly that countless people got killed because of a lie. The problem with Jesus’ teachings is that he never wrote them down himself. It was always his disciples who wrote, “Jesus said…”. That itself is already hearsay. Compound that with the fact that there were no printing presses at that time, so stories were passed on verbally or written manually from generation to generation. If Jesus really did exist, we cannot know for sure if those red-letter passages in the Bible were really spoken by him.

Nazareth’s most famous sonShould have stayed a great unknownLike his father carving woodHe’d have made goodTables, chairs and oaken chestsWould have suited Jesus bestHe’d have caused nobody harmNo one alarm.

And instead of building churches, we would be building shelters for the homeless. No trees would have been sacrificed to house a deity believed to have created those trees.

Listen Jesus, do you care for your race?Don’t you see we must keep in our place?We are occupiedHave you forgotten how put down we are?I am frightened by the crowdFor we are getting much too loudAnd they’ll crush us if we go too farIf we go too far.

If Judas were alive today, he would probably have said, “Listen Jesus, do you care for the world, don’t you see into war it’s been hurled? We have occupied, have you forgotten how influential we are!”

Listen Jesus to the warning I givePlease remember that I want us to liveBut it’s sad to see our chances weakening with ev’ry hourAll your followers are blindToo much heaven on their mindsIt was beautiful, but now it’s sourYes it’s allGone sour